Insulation material for buildings is routinely compressed during packaging for more efficient shipping. Usually the insulation material contains a high percentage of air cells or voids, and these are reduced in size during the compression process. Typical compression ratios provide a recovered thickness within the range of from about 4 to about 7 times the compressed thickness. Recent improvements have enabled compression ratios of between about 12 and about 20 or higher.
One of the aspects of insulation packages having the higher compression ratios (i.e., above 10) is that the packages are considerably smaller than typical packages, particularly when the typical package square foot coverage is maintained. For example, a conventional R25 PINKPLUS.RTM. insulation product (15 inch) covers about 32 square feet of attic floor, and in the rolled up condition with a compression ratio of about 7:1 has a diameter of about 22 inches. In comparison, a higher compression ratio product (15:1) has a rolled package diameter of about 14 inches for the same square feet of attic floor coverage. This improved compactness provides the expected advantage of enabling more insulation material to be carried in each truck or railcar. However, the smaller packages present handling problems, especially when the insulation is packaged in rolls rather than in bags.
What is required is a way to handle several of the compact insulation rolls at once. Simply collecting or assembling several rolls together presents some problems. The assembly must be stable, i.e., not susceptible of having the insulation rolls shift within the assembly. An assembly of four rolls placed in a square orientation, for example, tends to shift to a parallelogram configuration. The insulation assembly must be sufficiently stable to enable stacking of several assemblies on top of one another for efficient storage without the use of racks. Also, the assembly must not be so heavy that it is difficult or impossible for the insulation contractor to roll or cartwheel the insulation assembly end over end from place to place. Cartwheeling is lifting one end of the assembly and rotating it about the other end of the assembly. Further, the insulation assembly must be densely packed with the individual insulation rolls so that the maximum amount of insulation material can be placed within the cargo or storage space. There is a need for an improved insulation assembly.